Friday, November 02, 2007

Shining Through

Joop (pronounced ‘Yoop’, rhymes with ‘soap’) is my uncle. He’s from the Netherlands. He’s opinionated, stubborn, smart, musical, and artistic. He has created lovely oil paintings—works with abstract shapes and colors that tell a story.

His classical music recording collection fills shelves and shelves with CDs and VHS tapes of public television performances. Joop is kind and generous with people he knows and stingy and critical with authoritative figures. That could be left-over from the war. He joined the Dutch underground resistance as a teenager and was captured by the Germans. He escaped, but he was recaptured. Somewhere along the way, they broke his back (literally).

Miraculously, he survived. He emigrated to America. He taught art and art history in high school and met and married my aunt. They retired to the beautiful hills of North Carolina. I was visiting them—well, actually, I was taking care of Joop while my aunt went on a trip to visit her son.

Joop is a big man, but he has become a bit frail. He has a heart condition and diabetes that is controlled through a careful diet. He’s actually doing pretty well, considering all of his health conditions, but he can’t travel. This morning I fix his breakfast and we finish our coffee in preparation for the day.

Joop is a most gracious host and asks me, “Did you sleep well?” His Dutch accent has faded only slightly over the years.

“Wonderful, yes.”

“So, what would you like to do today?” he asks. Joop is the host and I am the guest. He wants to make sure my visit is pleasant.

“Oh,” I said, “I thought we’d drive into Marion, go shopping for some groceries. Later we can drive to the National Park’s Visitor’s center and look at the crafts if you like.”

“Yes, good. They have some wonderful ceramics there. Wonderful. But expensive. It’s really outrageous what they charge.” A pause. “Where’s Laura?”

“She’s visiting Randy. She’ll be home on Friday.” I smile in hopes that my smile will make it okay.

“Oh. That’s a long time.” (He misses her.) He thinks about it for a minute. “Would you like some breakfast?” Always the host.

“No, Joop. I’m fine. I already ate, thanks.” He looks down at his own spent meal and contemplates his breakfast. I get up and clear the plates. We eat in the living room on trays. The TV is on (always PBS), but it’s low. It’s really just background noise. The cat comes in and takes her place next to Joop. The dog growls a warning at me when I move close to take his tray.

Joop watches the television for a few minutes. I return and take my place on the sofa. He’s watching a program about ice skating.

“You know,” he says, “we used to go ice skating on the canals in winter. We would go out for hours. It was so cold. We would have races. I was pretty good. Then my mother would make us hot tea. I loved ice skating.”

His discourse about ice skating morphs into his father’s garden, his mother’s love for tea, and the camaraderie he had with his brothers and sisters. He doesn’t talk about the war and imprisonment, but he has in the past. I want to sit down with him and ask him all about that, but Laura doesn’t approve. She doesn’t want him to relive something that was so painful. So I respect her wishes and never ask him about it. His memory of his childhood is pretty good, though. Somehow, it shines through and becomes alive in his words.

2 comments:

Ginny
said...

We now live in Alaska, but we knew Joop and Laura in NY in the early 1980s and have corresponded every Christmas since. But a few years ago we stopped hearing from them and today I Googled his name to see if I could learn anything - to find your wonderful memorial! He's just as I remember! I was so sad to hear that Laura had also died - she was so vibrant. Our son was 9 when we were in NY and he took art lessons from Joop and has some beautiful oil pictures that I am sure they collaborated on! Now he is married to an artist! Ginny Moore Anchorage, Alaska

Ginny, Thank you for taking the time to leave such a heart-felt comment. Your single comment brings me such joy because I know you knew Laura and Joop and knew what loving, outgoing people they were. We visited them a few times in New York. All of their friends were our age!

About Me

My daytime job is a researcher and writer of Enterprise Java, web applications, and tools. And I will slice into the tangled web of technology in this blog from time to time. But there are other areas that I enjoy writing about too, as you can see.